Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday welcomed the European Union's proposal for strategic partnership with India to be finalised at the summit in The Hague on Monday.

"In recognition of India's growing stature and influence, the European Union has proposed a strategic partnership with India. This will be formalised during the Hague summit. We warmly welcome the development," he said in a statement here before leaving for the Hague.

He said Europe is an important political and strategic factor in the international sphere, adding recently the EU increased its membership from 15 to 25 erasing the vertical fault line that divided the European continent for over a century.